Alias: The Complete First Season (review)

Mon Sep 15 2003, 05:05pm | comments off

Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner: Daredevil) thought she was working for a black-ops arm of the CIA. She thought her estranged father (Victor Garber: Home Room) sold airplane parts. She thought she was going to marry her true love and live happily ever after. She thought wrong. After her fiancé is murdered and her father is revealed to be working for the CIA, too, Sydney enters a world of covert operations and double and possibly triple agents as she works to bring down the agency that killed her husband-to-be and stole her life. Garner quite deservedly became a star overnight for her performance as slinky, sexy, and smart Sydney, a woman who takes girl-power to a whole new level. She’s the rogue agent like we’ve never seen a woman play before in a story that sneakily acknowledges its classic theme — “she loved a man, and she lost him” — before smashing its clichés to pieces. Strong and unsqueamish, Sydney offers no contradictions in her ability to go from masquerading as a ditz at a cocktail party to digging up a grave by herself to get at a buried nuclear bomb. We believe her when she snarls at a bad guy, “I am your worst enemy — I’ve got nothing to lose.” But not only does Alias raise the bar on portrayals of competent, capable women, it’s one of the better spy series ever made for TV. The beautiful widescreen presentation is accentuated by the digital sound, perfect for the terrific pop and rock soundtrack.